Alberta not bound by bilingual rules, province’s top court rules

Darcy Henton, Calgary Herald02.20.2014

Gilles Caron, who has lost a second bid to have his traffic ticket thrown out on the grounds it was not written in both English and French, says the ruling shows a lack of respect for francophones in Alberta.

EDMONTON — Alberta’s top court has ruled the province’s laws don’t have to be bilingual, but the long-running case is likely headed to Canada’s highest court.

In a decision handed down Friday, Alberta’s Court of Appeal dismissed the case of two francophone motorists who fought their traffic tickets on the grounds they weren’t provided in both official languages.

The court ruled language rights in Alberta have not been entrenched in any constitutional documents.

It stated the Alberta Act of 1905 contained no provision protecting the use of French and that its omission was not an oversight.

“Indeed its absence was discussed in Parliament at the time, and an amendment to add an equivalent provision was defeated by an overwhelming vote in the House of Commons,” stated Justice Frans Slatter in the 47-page judgment.

The case involving Gilles Caron, charged with failing to make a left turn safely and Pierre Boutet, charged with speeding, is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

It’s a second setback for Caron. After the trial judge threw out his $54 ticket in 2008, a Court of Queen’s Bench justice overturned that decision.

The 54-year-old truck driver told reporters he felt let down by Friday’s ruling. Caron said he shouldn’t have to go to court for bilingual rights.

“This is an official English-only province with the attitude to back up their law,” Caron said.

He complained Albertans have been enjoying the benefit of all the Olympic medals won by French-speaking Canadian athletes at Sochi, but they don’t respect French Canadians enough to have bilingual traffic tickets.

“Alberta is saying: ‘Yeah, we’ll take this, thank you very much,’ but if you come to Alberta, (you have) no rights to have the laws translated into French.”

Boutet, a 60-year old businessman, said Canada is a bilingual country and it’s his right to be served in his language.

Justice Slatter, who wrote his own decision but concurred with Justices Clifton O’Brien and Patricia Rowbotham on dismissing the appeals, said the argument put forward on behalf of the two French-speaking motorists is premised on the assumption language rights set out in 1869 “had somehow been forgotten within one generation.”

“Their further argument is that somehow those forgotten rights were not rediscovered for over a century,” he stated. “All of that is inconsistent with the record.”

Rowbotham stated both the Canadian and British Parliament “knew full well how to entrench language rights, yet neither elected to do so in any constitutional document relating to what is now Alberta.”

“In my view, the absence of explicit language of entrenchment of language rights . . . is an insurmountable barrier to the appellant’s argument,” she stated. “For this reason, I would dismiss the appeals.”

The appeals were heard last April 22 and 23.

The French Canadian Association of Alberta, which joined the legal fight as an intervener, said it is disappointed with the decision, but won’t give up.

“We’re already committed to go through the process until the very end,” said president Jean Johnson.

“You hate to lose but at the same time the reality is the decision doesn’t change anything in people’s lives daily.”

Johnson said there is huge growth in Alberta’s francophone community with many unilingual francophones arriving every year to find work in the province’s thriving economy.

He said there are nearly 90,000 Franco-Albertans and more than 238,000 French-speaking people in the province. Many come to the association for assistance in dealing with traffic citations they can’t comprehend, he said.

“Somehow there has to be an easy, affordable solution to address that,” he said.

With files from The Canadian Press

dhenton@calgaryherald.com

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